Acrylamides, while often containing biological activity themselves, also provide a valuable framework for the synthetic organic chemist. The construction of sophisticated trisubstituted olefins is a desire of many chemists. Despite the fact that acrylamides are known in the art, the methodology for construction of these systems is limited. In addition, there few syntheses of acrylamides which are both efficient and regioselective. For example, in the case of palladium catalyzed hydroarylation reactions, the addition of the aromatic group can occur at either carbon atom of the alkyne resulting in two different regioisomers. Typically, the addition occurs at each carbon atom of the alkyne with equal frequency. As a result the product of the reaction is a 1:1 mixture of regioisomers. Subsequently, controlling the regioselectivity of this reaction has been a problem. In an attempt to control regioselectivity, artisans have attempted and achieved some level of regiochemical control by varying the steric environment of the alkyne and by combining steric influences with palladium-hydroxyl coordination. No methodology has been identified to date, however, that satisfactorily controls the regioselectivity of hydroarylation reactions of a variety substrates. Most importantly, this type of hydroarylation reaction has never been employed on a propiolamide substrate.